Joe’s Weather Blog: Morning storms moving away…(THU-7/7)

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Joe’s Weather Blog: Morning storms moving away…(THU-7/7)

Good morning…I’m sure many woke up this morning a bit earlier than usual. I know I did…10s of thousands started the day without power and there are multiple trees down in the region. While the worst of the storms have now moved on…additional storms are possible through at least 10AM…then we should once again start the gradual clearing process. The nasty heat has broken for now…temperatures today will still be warm though in the afternoon.

Forecast:

Updated at 4:30PM

Tonight: Looking a the latest weather maps and also looking at the window late this afternoon indicates a rapid development of clouds. The satellite images are showing a few different boundaries out there through the region which may serve as focus areas for storms to try and develop between this evening and 12AM or so. On the negative side is a rather strong cap that is in place suppressing (for now) convection. The SPC has “upgraded” the entire KC metro into an “enhanced” risk of severe storms (winds the main issue again)

So there are pluses and minuses. Also of note is some VERY muggy air moving northwards and this is contributing to increasing instability. The 4PM surface map indicated dew points (noted by the green numbers) of 75°+ moving northwards…that is some pretty humid air coming into a lot of heat (near 90°) for many areas.

So the question through 12AM (at least) is how long can the cap hold off any developing convection. If it weakens a bit, we could see rapid storm development in somewhere in W MO and E KS. Storms that do develop will gradually move intitially more eastwards…then if a whole complex comes together towards the SE or SSE it appears. The main threat of storms locally would be gusty winds…again IF they develop which is by no means a certainty.

Here is a quote from the latest SPC discussion:

“confidence is low in how convection will evolve across the region into the evening”

We’re just sort of in a wait and see scenario for the evening and overnight. It really is a nowcasting situation. There are reasons for storms to develop and reasons why they may struggle.

I’ll add in the HRRR model via IA State to this update so we can see how it tries to play things out…it seems (as of late this afternoon) to want to develop storms near and south of KC.

Anyway I just wanted to chime in again with an update for the late afternoon blog readers in case something pops…you won’t be surprised through 12AM at least.

Discussion: (from this morning)

I mentioned over the weekend and again on Monday night on-the-air when I was filling in for MT that this was NOT going to be a dry week in the area. I knew the potential of storms (mostly these overnight complexes) would be an issue and as I mentioned in the blog…it’s very difficult to write about the set-ups in specific areas when I write the blog in the morning hours…it really is a matter of watching the storms develop later in the day and especially in the evening…then seeing when they make their move to the southeast.

What I can do is recognize the set-up in the broad sense and then see if that set-up favors the western MO and eastern KS are for storms to roll this way overnight…and it did this morning. Friday morning though is not a slam dunk…now that the storms today have altered the environment around us.

Let’s start things out by looking at radar this morning…

Storms were mainly wind producers…mostly in the 50-60 MPH range. There does seem to be some heavier damage out towards Oak Grove, MO. Here are the storm reports through 8AM.

Depending on when you read the blog today…if it’s 1st thing in the morning as I type this…you can see the back edge of the rain moving through eastern KS west of Topeka…that will clear the area (KC metro) well before lunch. Typically what happens after these morning complexes is that there is stabilized air left in their wake. We often refer to the atmosphere as being “worked over”. This typically keeps storms from reforming during the course of the afternoon heating.

Our short range models are rather extreme with the heat today. The HRRR model, in addition to having a thunderstorm bias, also loves to “overheat” the temperatures on the ground. For example…take a look at this morning run for afternoon highs today and pay attention to areas down I-35 towards Emporia and Wichita…it’s forecasting highs between 105-110°…not going to happen to that degree,

The RAP model…another short term model run out to about 18 hours and updated once per hour isn’t much better and certainly isn’t for the KC region. It’s got 100° heat on the south side of the metro from I-70 southwards.

My feeling is that today will be closer to 90° and rain free in the afternoon

As far as what’s ahead..again this is just a wait and see game right now. It appears there will be another disturbance moving through parts of IA and into NE MO. This should spark additional storms up there overnight.

I’m also watching a potential disturbance overnight that may move through NE. This will need to be monitored as we continue to be in NW flow aloft allowing these potential complexes to infiltrate the region if they take the proper track and form in the right upstream areas favorable for KC.

So again it’s a complicated situation because we’re trying to predict complexes of storms that haven’t even developed and how they will affect us 24 hours in the future.

Beyond this…nothing really extreme in terms of temperatures…it appears a rather typical summer temperature regime will hang around the area for awhile. Humidity levels will by typical as well…not extreme but muggy.

Have a great Thursday and I’ll update the blog again tomorrow. I should also give you a heads up that after the weekend blogs may get somewhat scarce for a couple of weeks as I’ll be on a bit of an extended vacation for a couple of weeks. It will be somewhat extended because we’re trying to get our vacation days in before November so that’s why we’ll all be on different shifts covering all the different newscasts.

2 comments

Worst forecaster in Kansas City hands down goes to Mike Thompson. As a person he is great but hiabforecast are atrocious. Constantly forecast hot hot hot and no rain. He misses bad everytime. He has earned the nickname name the Heat Monger. Maybe he should watch Lezak and learn something.